The Dehler story
David Harding
The Dehler story
In the year of its 50th anniversary,
Peter K Poland traces Dehler’s origins and
development, and looks at some of the
boats that made the company’s name
T
he first time I visited Dehler’s
original all-singing, all-
dancing factory at Meschede-
Freienohl in Sauerland in the
mid-1980s, I soon realised
that the company’s founding
father, Willi Dehler, was much more than
just a highly accomplished engineer: he
also had a zany sense of humour.
The first thing I saw when van de Stadt’s
chief designer Cees van Tongeren drove
me into the ultra-modern factory complex
was the front of a full-size Dehler Optima
92 crashing through a huge hole in the
factory wall. Just Willi’s little joke, of
course: it had been firmly wedged and
cemented there since 1976, but as a
way-out artistic installation it would have
done credit to any exponent of fringe
modern art.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter K Poland crossed the
Atlantic in a 7.6m (25ft) Wind
Elf in 1968 and later spent
30 years as co-owner
of Hunter Boats. He
is now a freelance
journalist.
Practical Boat Owner 567 November 2013 • www.pbo.co.uk
However, the mighty
Dehler empire came from
very humble beginnings. ‘My
father was born in 1929 in
Dortmund,’ says Willi Dehler’s Willi Dehler’s joke: an Optima 92
son Karl, who works for the crashing through the factory wall!
company to this day. ‘After the
war he became qualified as an electrician;
then in 1955 he married, and in 1956 I
was born as their only child. In 1958 my
parents had their own shop selling TVs,
radios and all electric parts, then they
started sailing as a hobby in a van de
Stadt-designed Stern dinghy. From that
time on, my father had contact with Mr
van de Stadt and a lifetime friendship
began. I had my first sail in this family
Van de Stadt designer Cees van Tongeren
(left) and boatbuilder Willi Dehler
Dehler db1: from
around £15,000
second-hand
Dehler
Stern dinghy in 1959 – unfortunately, the
boat capsized!’
It’s interesting to compare how the big
players of modern European boatbuilding
first got involved in the game. While the
Bénéteau business was well established as
a commercial builder of fishing vessels
before it turned its hand to GRP sailing
boats in the 1960s, Willi Dehler owned
the aforementioned electrical shop and
Henri Jeanneau started off in a family
hardware store, taking over part of his
father’s workshop to build speedboats.
Having got these hairy little rocket ships
out of his system, Jeanneau turned his
attention to GRP sailing yachts in 1964.
He first approached van de Stadt to design
these cruising models – just as Willi
Dehler did at almost exactly the same
time when he swapped electrical retailing
for boatbuilding.
The first boat Dehler built was
➜
actually inspired by the Stern he had
23
 Boats
so enjoyed sailing in his time off from the
shop. In 1963 he put pen to paper and
designed the Winnetou, a 3m dinghy, and
went on to sell almost 400. It was a happy
start to a long and successful career as one
of Europe’s premier boatbuilders.
However, as Cees van Tongeren of van
de Stadt Design told me, Dehler then
turned to his friend and produced his first
van de Stadt cruiser – and he never looked
back. Cees explains: ‘Dehler wanted to
build a GRP caravan and went to Ricus
van de Stadt for information. Before then
he had bought one of the first GRP Stern
dinghies from van de Stadt, but Ricus
persuaded him to build boats instead of
caravans…. In 1965 Dehler asked van de
Stadt to design a keel centreboarder in
two variants; one with a cabin top as a
cabin cruiser and one without a cabin
top as a day-sailer.’
An all-time top-seller
The resulting yacht – named the
Varianta – went on to become not just
the most successful Dehler cruiser ever,
but also one of the all-time top-selling
European yachts. What a way to launch
a new cruiser range. It’s true to say the
market was not exactly awash with
versatile GRP family yachts in the
mid-1960s, so there was plenty of pent-up
demand for such a boat, but Dehler hit
the jackpot with his very first throw of
the dice and went on to sell around 4,500
Variantas in its various incarnations
between 1966 and 1982. This truly
amazing achievement gave Dehler the
foundation on which to set up a state-of-
the-art manufacturing process – a process
that was to stand the company in good
stead for the ensuing decades.
Unfortunately, you’re unlikely to see
many Variantas in the UK, primarily
because Dehler preferred to sell direct to
the client in those days. That way there
was no commission for a dealer so the
client got a fantastic deal.
This jaunty and attractive little 6.5m
cruiser has four berths (two in the saloon
and two in a separate forepeak) and
adequate galley facilities amidships. The
Optima 92: second-hand
from £13,500
24
LWL of 6.7m and beam of 2.48m meant
that the first Dehler to carry the Optima
name could offer a forepeak, amidships
heads compartment, linear galley with
dinette opposite and a quarter berth aft
of a compact navigation area. Once again,
the Dehler plus Van de Stadt team had
come up with a desirable and attractive
fast cruiser.
Dehler continued its emphasis on
performance with its next offering:
the Delanta 76, introduced in 1972.
Nevertheless, cruising comfort was not
neglected as the 76 later evolved into the
Delanta 78 and 80 versions. Willi Dehler
was always ready to modify length,
cockpit and accommodation plans in
order to get maximum life (and sales) out
Dehler
of each model. This Delanta, for example,
offered a choice of layouts – separate aft
The Varianta was Dehler’s first proper cruising cabin with centre cockpit or conventional
yacht: price second-hand from £1,900
accommodation plan with aft cockpit –
stub keel plus centreplate arrangement and different keel options. But whichever
provides a 43% ballast ratio and a version a client bought, he got a sleek
displacement-length ratio (DLR) of 115. It little yacht with elegant overhangs, a
draws 1.3m with the plate down and 0.7m fairly deep ‘short chord’ fin keel and a
with it raised, for easy trailing or creek- spade rudder.
crawling. The irony is that this versatile Cees van Tongeren recalls: ‘My first
little package would appeal as much to design for Dehler was the Delanta. As we
today’s sailors as it did to their predecessors were a good team, Willi Dehler and CvT,
in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Sadly, however, there’s I continued designing all Dehler yachts
nothing much like it on the market: today’s for 25 years, until 1995.’
typical ‘starter boat’ is around 30ft (9.1m). By now, Dehler had another trick up his
Perhaps this helps explain why the sleeve – Ton Cup racing. The van de Stadt
Varianta Owners’ Association is still so design office once wrote: ‘Around 1971,
active: just look at the films on YouTube Dehler came to the conclusion that speed
of large fleets of Variantas racing at places would become a major selling argument
like Travemünde and the Möhnesee. It’s for cruising yachts. That is why the
a real eye-opener. Smart new sails and Delanta had a hull that also fitted the
sponsors’ names painted on several hulls Quarter Ton Class very well. The German
prove that 21st century Varianta sailing is
still a big deal and a load of fun. Better
still, it doesn’t break the bank.
Ahead of its time
Next up came the Optima 830,
www.boatshop24.com
launched in 1969. Again, it’s archetypal
‘60s van de Stadt. Looking a bit like a mini
Pioneer 9, it was well ahead of its time
with its jaunty sheer, elegant fin keel and
separate spade rudder under a pretty
retrousseé counter. An LOA of 8.27m,
Optima 830: from £10,000 second-hand
van de Stadt
Peter Oort/ www.Oort2.nl
Delanta 76: from £5,500 second-hand
Practical Boat Owner 567 November 2013 • www.pbo.co.uk

Optima 98: second-hand from £18,500
David Harding
Delanta 78: from £10,000 second-hand
sailor Georg Nissen completed a Delanta
hull as a racing yacht, the Timschal. He
finished third in the Quarter Ton Cup
in 1973 and 1974, while van de Stadt
designers Paul Pasman and Hans Korner
won a top Dutch regatta in 1975 in a
Delanta racing version.’
Pursuing the racing market, Dehler also
became a licensed builder of the Olympic
470 dinghy class in 1974. This was
perhaps a strange move for a production
builder of cruising yachts, and I wonder
whether it ever contributed to the bottom
line. However, it certainly bought valuable
publicity for the company. According to
Karl Dehler, ‘I started racing in a dinghy
and had my first success
in a Dehler 470. I was Dehler was stretching its lead on competitors
1975 German youth
champion, 1976 German by fine-tuning its production methods
champion and second in Olympic
selection of that year. Hübner/Bode
won the gold medal in a Dehler 470!’
Airy and comfortable
The 1974 Optima 92 was ‘Dehler
mainstream’, being its first fast cruiser to
burst through the 30ft/9.1m barrier and
appeal to long-distance, deep-sea sailors.
It was also extremely innovative in many
aspects. It was one of the first cruisers
to offer a heads area relocated from
amidships to a spacious compartment
adjacent to the aft companionway. Its airy
and comfortable saloon was one of the
first to benefit from hull ports set into the
topsides, while its large L-shaped galley
(to starboard) and navigator’s chart table
and quarter berth area (to port) were well
suited to offshore cruising.
If that lot did not appeal, there was a
later aft cabin version with a central
cockpit – the 1979 Optima 98. To top it
all off, the Optima came with a fractional
rig as opposed to the then almost
universal masthead, and it had wheel
steering. All these features were highly
unusual in a 1970s 30-footer – and even
more so in a top-quality 30-footer sold at
Practical Boat Owner 567 November 2013 • www.pbo.co.uk
The Dehler story
van de Stadt
van de Stadt
van de Stadt
Dehler db2: around £24,000 second-hand Sprinta Sport: around £6,500 second-hand
such a competitive price. No wonder beneath a short counter while the 2.4m
Dehler was now riding the crest of a wave, beam provides practical four-berth
bearing in mind that Bénéteau did not accommodation, with a WC under the
build its first fast cruiser – the First 30 – forepeak double berth. The Sprinta Sport
until 1976. At this stage of play, Dehler version is a very different beast, with
was well ahead of the game. reduced freeboard and a low-level
At the same time, Dehler was stretching wedge-shaped roof. Its rig, complete with
its lead on its competitors by fine-tuning running backstays, is bigger, while the
its production methods and unique overall weight is lower. This all resulted in
‘in-house’ supply system. It bought a very rapid little boat that hoovered up
aluminium extrusions to manufacture its silverware all around the world. I got to
own masts and booms, and had its own know the Sprinta Sport well – indeed,
riggers who made standing and running rather too well – because it became
rigging. Its steel fabrication division made seriously hot competition for our hitherto
pulpits, pushpits, shroud plates and all all-conquering Hunter Sonata.
the other custom steelwork items that go If the Sprinta Sport was a big success, the
next Dehler race boat –
the db1 production
Three-Quarter Tonner –
took the world by storm.
into or onto a production yacht, and it As Karl Dehler remembers: ‘The db1 story
built an ABS forming machine so that started in 1979 with the development of
under-deck locker units, small hatches this successful van de Stadt design, drawn
and other non-structural parts were also by Cees van Tongeren. In 1980, ‘81, ‘82,
made in-house. and ‘83 we had much success at the world
Put simply, Dehler majored on saving championships – I took part every time.
costs and gaining efficiency, yet it did not ‘Then we decided to modify the boat
cut corners: its boats were well made and radically to produce the 1984 db2
extremely competitively priced, thanks to version. The Three-Quarter Ton Cup was
its ‘direct to the client’ selling methods. in Kiel, and I won it with the db2 Positron:
db2 Flurschaden was second and db2
Multi-role Right On was third – a big success. This
It was around this time that Willi Dehler was the starting point for Dehler’s
and his team caught the racing bug in a international business.’
big way. After Timschal had finished third The db1 and db2 were unstoppable and
in successive World Quarter Ton Cup sold all around the globe, putting the
championships, Dehler commissioned the Dehler name firmly on the world map.
van de Stadt office in 1976 to design a One area of Dehler’s ‘international
multi-role 7m yacht that could excel in business’ to receive a db1-driven boost
IOR racing events, become a popular One was the UK, where accomplished sailor
Design class yet still sell as a performance Alan Bourdon – previously of Southern
cruiser. The young Cees van Tongeren Ocean Shipyards and a long-standing fan
– who had only recently joined the van de of van de Stadt designs – became an agent
Stadt office – sharpened his pencil and in the late 1970s. Alan exhibited a db1 in
designed the Sprinta and its Sprinta the pool at the Earls Court Boat Show,
Sport derivative. then campaigned it with great success. As
The basic Sprinta has a short and a result, the Dehler name in the UK shot
attractive coachroof above a sleek hull from obscurity to prominence in
with moderate freeboard. The rudder lives double-quick time. Orders flowed in. ➜
25
 Boats
van de Stadt
Dehler 38: around £44,000 second-hand
Performance and stability
Amid all this high-profile racing publicity,
Dehler had not forgotten its ‘bread and
butter’ cruising range. As any boatbuilder
will tell you, sound family cruisers make
up most of the market and good ones
breed brand loyalty, so existing clients
come back for more of the same when
they want a bigger boat.
The Duetta 86, introduced in the late
‘70s, was just such a boat – perfect for
Varianta or Delanta owners looking to go
larger. Once again, van Tongeren drew a
fast cruiser that looked (and was) a cut
above the norm. With its sleek coachroof,
well-defined overhangs and moderate
freeboard the Duetta was a class act, and its
Optima 101:
second-hand from
around £20,000
26
Dehler 25: second-hand price around £10,000
www.boatshop24.com
Dehler 37: around £40,000 second-hand
PBO archive
Dehler 31: around £24,000 second-hand
2.95m beam, 43% ballast ratio, 19.88 sail
area/displacement ratio and 160 DLR
added up to an appealing mix of
performance and stability. Like other
Dehler cruisers, it came with either an aft
or centre cockpit – the latter in conjunction
with a separate stern cabin – and all in just
8m overall. Headroom, space and standard
of finish in all versions were excellent.
Needless to say, the Duetta flew off the slick
Dehler production lines and provided a
sound foundation to the business.
In similar – albeit considerably bigger –
vein were the 1981 Dehler 37 and 1985
372 upgrade. This was a real Tardis of a
cruiser, offering three double-berth
sleeping cabins, an enormous central
David Harding
Practical Boat Owner 567 November 2013 • www.pbo.co.uk
David Harding
David Harding
Dehler 28: from £22,500 second-hand
saloon, a big U-shaped galley and a proper
navigation area. With its chunky good
looks, it is a real ‘go anywhere, any time’
cruiser. At around the same time, Dehler
showed that it had not forgotten the
small boat market, introducing the very
pretty Dehler 22 and 25 models. Both
offered an unusual mix of water ballast
and vertically lifting keel, showing Willi
Dehler’s ability to think laterally. This
format was revolutionary at the time and
went a long way towards providing larger
trailer-sailers that were stable and fast
under sail, yet could shed weight for
towing on the roads.
On the larger cruiser front, Dehler then
reverted to the db1 genes. In its flat-out
Three-Quarter Ton guise this boat
displayed great handling characteristics
and speed, but its accommodation could
hardly be called ‘cruiser-friendly.’
Therefore, Willi and Cees van Tongeren
decided to use the same successful hull
lines but to put an all-new coachroof
and deck layout on top and insert proper
cruising accommodation down below.
At the same time, the fractional rig was
detuned and reduced in size and less
extreme keel options were offered. The
resulting Optima 101 (1983) and
Dehler 34 (1984) were huge successes
and sold in prodigious quantities. The
principal difference between the two
being that the 101 had a large heads
compartment amidships, while the
upgraded 34 went for the now de rigueur
aft heads compartment.

Slickly-finished
In the UK, meanwhile, Hunter joined
Alan Bourdon to become the second
Dehler distributor. We wanted larger sporty
cruisers to sell to Hunter clients when they
had fallen off the end of our range, which
stopped at around 31ft (9.4m). The plan
worked, and these highly attractive yachts
sold well. The only problem was that
Dehler still tended to operate on a ‘direct
to the client’ basis, so the dealer only got a
very small commission and had to add a
bit to the retail price to cover costs and
make a return. The UK retail price was still
extremely competitive, so much so that
some clients wondered where the catch
was, but I always reckoned that this
unusual pricing policy was a mistake that
could eventually lead Dehler into trouble...
The Dehler 34 was followed by the
smaller but equally attractive Dehler 31
in 1984 and the larger Dehler 38 in 1985.
All three models were
indisputably ‘sporty’ The UK price was extremely competitive – so
and very competitively
priced. As usual, Cees much so clients wondered if there was a catch
van Tongeren drew beautiful-looking boats
and Willi Dehler produced slickly-finished
interiors that made the most of the space
available. The Dehler 31 was very much a
mini 34, while the 38 offered high
performance combined with a three-
double-cabin layout. I once had a great
time sailing one of these around Antibes in
the South of France; a welcome change
from mud-hopping on the east and south
coasts in a small bilge-keeler. I hasten to
add, this Dehler 38 belonged to a client,
not to me. More’s the pity.
Moving back down the size scale, Dehler
produced another cracking fast cruiser in
1987, the Dehler 28 – not to be confused
with a later Judel/Vrolijk-designed 28 –
with fully battened main, self tacking jib
Dehler 22: around £7,000 second-hand
Duetta 86: from £14,000 second-hand
Practical Boat Owner 567 November 2013 • www.pbo.co.uk
and Dehler’s ‘main-drop’ system all as
standard. I contacted fellow Royal Southern
Yacht Club member George Gerwitz to ask
how he had got on with his Dehler 28, and
he replied: ‘Aquila was amazing. We raced
JOG and had a good number of wins over
10 years. I also sailed most weekends
throughout the season, mainly single-
handed. Crossing to France was not a
problem. I sold Aquila for Amigos, a Dehler
34… we can race double-handed and I can
sail her single-handed. It’s like growing up.
The extra room, the additional speed.’
Elegant fast cruisers
As a distributor in the ‘80s, I began to
wonder whether Dehler was missing a
trick. The yacht market was developing at
huge speed in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s,
and the French builders were realigning
their model ranges accordingly. Up until
1985, Bénéteau had majored on its racy
First range that competed head-on with
Dehler: but the French twigged that the
fast-growing charter market and less
sporty leisure sailors now wanted boats
with maximum space and comfort, even
if this came at the expense of ultimate
performance. Accordingly, Bénéteau
introduced a whole new range of cruisers
in 1985 under the Océanis brand while
developing its First range for the speed
merchants. Jeanneau did likewise as
it started splitting its sailboat output
between Sun Odyssey (cruising) and Sun
Fast (cruiser-racing) models. Océanis and
Sun Odyssey models proceeded to sell like
hot cakes to charter operators and family
cruisers but Dehler didn’t go to the party,
preferring to continue concentrating on
Dehler 34: from around
£26,000 second-hand
van de Stadt
van de Stadt
The Dehler story
the performance end of the market.
After the launch of the 28, Dehler
continued on its familiar course. More
elegant fast cruisers from the van de Stadt
office followed, then design teams Judel/
Vrolijk and Simonis Voogd joined in,
finally displacing the prolific and
successful Cees van Tongeren: more about
these latest Dehlers in PBO next month.
Meanwhile, the firm’s popular camper
van, the Dehler Profi (based on the
Volkswagen T3 then T4 chassis), continued
its successful run with around 5,000 units
sold before the plug was finally pulled in
1997 after 16 years of production. At its
peak, the Profi camper van had accounted
for around 15% of Dehler’s turnover, and
the skilled use of lightweight ABS
mouldings and other features in its interior
probably had a beneficial influence on
some aspects of the yacht designs.
Then, after more than 30 successful years,
founder Willi Dehler left the
company in 1994.
Meanwhile, Karl – who had
studied production
engineering management – worked for the
company from 1986 to 1997 then left to
join luxury caravan and camping van
builders Hymer before joining Hanse in
2004. When Hanse bought Dehler in 2009
Karl found himself once again developing
Dehler yachts.
So, although many changes and
developments unfolded as Dehler moved
into the 21st century and celebrated its
50th anniversary, there’s still a prominent
member of the Dehler family on board. This
means that the tradition of quality build
and high performance should remain
synonymous with the Dehler name.
NEXT MONTH
Spotlight on the more recent Dehler models
David Harding
27